Pragmatic is a philosophical approach that recognises that action and change may occur differently in different social contexts and environments. It therefore encourages researchers to be flexible in their investigative techniques. This pragmatist approach is particularly useful for researching organizational processes and activities as it can help identify and understand the effects of different social actions on individual perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. The use of pragmatism also helps to develop evaluation literacy and an understanding of the role that evaluation plays in an organization.
As a philosophy, pragmatism has broad applications across disciplines and a rich heritage in various fields of study. Classical pragmatism was originally developed in Dewey’s eponymous school of thought (although Peirce and James used the term slightly differently), but has gone on to inspire and influence a wide range of authors and thinkers, including philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and lawyers.
In its philosophic form, pragmatism is a view of life and the world which takes into account the way in which we make sense of the real world by combining experience and reflection. It advocates that we seek out practical, everyday knowledge and focuses on making sense of the world by bringing together theory, practice and experience, and by unpacking our existing knowledge of our environment.
The pragmatic view of reality and our sense of the world is a natural complement to other approaches to philosophy, such as naturalism and objectivism, which share a commitment to an empirically-based epistemology. It also sits comfortably alongside the pragmatist philosophy of action and ethics which was further developed by Dewey and his successors, and in the socio-political philosophy of Habermas.
A pragmatist approach is often associated with the field of pragmatics, which was developed by linguists and philosophers in the 1920s and 1930s. There is strong evidence that pragmatism underpins much experimental work on the interpretation of language, for example studies of the speed with which people interpret irony, and there are many other examples.
Applied research is an integral part of the pragmatic approach and therefore it is important for researchers to understand and support participants’ participation in their studies. This can be achieved by taking a constructivist approach to research that involves an ongoing dialogue with the participants, providing the opportunity for them to shape the research and provide new insights.
In both our project example examples, a pragmatist approach was instrumental in helping us to establish research objectives that were anchored in respondent experience at the initial design stage. It also helped to highlight the need for methodologies that would go beyond organisational documentation and involve participant observation of staff at the programme implementation level in order to capture the subtle, informal and everyday evaluative practices which take place there. This helped us to develop a more meaningful and empowering understanding of the underlying complexity of the programme processes being studied. In doing so, we hoped to contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which programmes can be designed and implemented to improve performance.
